Photographer captures something she can't explain in skies over Greenville County

Still a little doubtful though. If I'm understanding correctly, the woman thought she was taking photos of
the moon and sun close together. This would mean that she saw the artifact before grabbing the camera, and lens flare would only be visible through
the camera lens.

I will highlight the difference.

a Taylors shutterbug thought she had snapped a few shots of sun and moon close together in the twilight sky Sunday.

She never says she saw it in the sky, she only mention it as being in the pictures after they were taken, or possibly when she looks at the screen
during zoom, no mention if phone or camera.

If its not lens flare it could possibly be the sun in its true position ( the sun we see is not the true location of the sun because the earth's
atmosphere refracts the light). Not saying this is true but possible suggestion.

With regards to the dots, looks like grids on a camera or pixel blacks as mentioned in an earlier post

True, she is talking about the bright spots in the "orb" it appears, though still doesn't change the fact that she didn't notice until she had
taken the pictures and that it shows a clear resemblance to a lens flare.

If i should come with a guess to the dots in the "orb", i would say it's reflections of reflections created in the lens, either of the lens flare
itself or something within the camera lens.

A picture artifact created by the lens, which is only visible in the lens flare.

Though that is only a guess, as i have have nothing to compare with.

I did search around for different lens flares to see if there was anything to compare with, without luck.

As to the thread, these pics certainly have the characteristics of lens flair... but... (and that's a big but) IF folks saw it with nothing but their
own eyes... which DO have lenses, btw, but...

but she said she saw it with real, living eyes... thinking the sun and moon were close together... the bright spots on it weren't obvious but ...as a
separate object in the sky, she is reporting that it was just that... and not that she snapped a pic and then saw it... the anomaly was the reason for
the pics in the first place...

unless she's lying, or mistaken (and the other poster who said they saw it is, too) and it's just lens flair and she added to the story after the
fact.

But it IS odd that the object is framed right where lens flair would occur... especially if it's NOT lens flair!?

edit on 2/19/2015 by Baddogma because: (no reason given)

edit on 2/19/2015 by Baddogma because: editted, became even more
garbled... edited again

Still a little doubtful though. If I'm understanding correctly, the woman thought she was taking photos of the
moon and sun close together. This would mean that she saw the artifact before grabbing the camera, and lens flare would only be visible through the
camera lens.

This is what she has said,

'snapped a few shots of sun and moon close together in the twilight sky Sunday.

When Stephanie Davenport looked closer, she said something caught her eye.'

“I originally thought it was the moon, but when I zoomed in on my pictured it clearly wasn't. It is round and looked to have lights on it,”
Davenport wrote in a Facebook message to FOX Carolina.

She said she snapped the first few photos on Center Drive in Taylors and then snapped a few more on Highway 290.

Every time she zoomed in, the strange bright spots appeared in the image.

Davenport said she consulted someone who might have the answer: a family member "

I would take it also that she was taking the advantage to capture Sun and Moon together, you see something, you take a picture. Then of course there
are the other pictures of the same thing, and what are the chances of repeating the process that caused the same lens flare effect every time?
Someone said that the white dots have no import, I say just the opposite until I find a mundane shot elsewhere just the same, because without the
white dots the effect is easily put down to lens flare, albeit a singular flare in each case here, (there are most often several lens affects in these
kind of shots with differing strengths/colours) but not necessarily.
The pictures don't seem to have a deep contrast either, where you might get white noise in the picture.

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